Intrinsitivity

Abstract

This paper reviews Paul Starr’s book The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications. Included are a biography of the author, a synopsis of the book addressing key points and intriguing highlights, personal commentary about the book, and an afterward.

Table of Contents

1. About the Author
2. Book Synopsis
3. Commentary
4. References

About the Author

Paul Starr is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and Stuart Professor of Communications and Public Affairs at Princeton University. (Princeton, 2006) He is also co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect as well as the author of several books, including The Discarded Army: Veterans After Vietnam, The Logic of Health-Care Reform, and The Social Transformation of American Medicine, which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. (Starr, 2005) The book under present review, The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications is Starr’s latest, although a new book entitled Freedom’s Power: The True Force of Liberalism is due out in April of 2007. (Amazon, 2006; Starr, 2005)

Book Synopsis

The Creation of the Media presents a comprehensive and richly detailed history of communications and communication networks in the U.S. from the perspective of their political origins and influences. (Starr, 2005) Despite the indication of the first chapter’s title, the vast time period it covers is roughly 1450 to 1941. (Starr, 2005) Over the course of 12 chapters, it details a wealth of historical information about different kinds of media, starting with the printing press in the first chapter and ending with television in the second to last chapter. (Starr, 2005) This book also contains 67 pages of notes to support the accuracy of information presented. (Starr, 2005)

In Starr’s introduction, he states why he writes about the connection between media and politics. As Starr (2005, p. 1) explains:

Technology and economics cannot alone explain the system of communications we have inherited or the one we are creating. The communications media have so direct a bearing on the exercise of power that their development is impossible to fully understand without taking politics into account, not simply in the use of media, but in the making of constitutive choices about them.

Constitutive choices are for Starr (2006, pp.1, 2) “those that create the media and institutional framework of fields of human activity…. At times of decision—constitutive moments, if you will—ideas and culture come into play, as do constellations of power, preexisting institutional legacies, and models from other countries.”

To grasp the exhaustive content of this book, it would be helpful to have in mind a structural overview of that content. The Creation of the Media is divided into three parts, “Part I: The Opening of the Public Square, 1600-1860,” “Part II: The Rise of Technological Networks, 1840-1930,” and “Part III: The Making of the Modern Media, 1865-1941.” (Starr, 2005) In Part I, Starr (2005, p. 24) discusses the emergence of the public sphere, which refers to cultural and technological developments leading to “openly accessible information and communication about matters of general social concern.” The printing press provided the requisite technology for the mass distribution of print, capitalism furnished the means by which to profit from its abilities, and, on the sociocultural front, Protestant prosyletization and debates played a dominant role in getting out the message that messages could be given and gotten for literally pennies on the dollar. (Starr, 2005)

Part I also introduces a recurrent theme throughout the book, which is the contrast between the reception of print in Europe and its reception in America. European governments, especially those of England and France, are described as having been relatively opposed to the exercise of free speech in print, taking extreme precautionary measures to centralize controlling power of the press by owning printing operations, taxing heavily, and heavily monitoring mail traffic. (Starr, 2005) In sharp contrast, American printing operations are described as having been eager to promote free speech, taking equally strong measures to decentralize controlling power of the press by allowing mostly privately ownership of printing operations, subsidizing operational expenses, and, after the 1792 Stamp Act, legally committing to not monitoring mail traffic. (Starr, 2005)

Five other important factors that are mentioned as having facilitated the rapid and liberal spread of information and communications in the U.S. during colonial and postcolonial periods are an inexpensive postal service, constitutional provisioning for free speech, the advent of newspapers together with the subsequent development of the penny press, copyright protection, and the widespread availability of public education. Starr (2005, p. 107) summarizes America’s role in these developments as follows:

The United States established free speech as a constitutional principle, and the Constitution itself was written and published so that ordinary citizens could read it. Instead of taxing newspapers, the government subsidized them. It created a comprehensive postal network and assured postal privacy. It introduced a periodic census published the aggregate results, and assured individuals anonymity. Primarily through local efforts, it extended primary school earlier to more of its population, including women.

Part II discusses the rise of technological networks, such as the telegraph, the telephone, and radio from 1840 to 1930, with their social, political, and economic implications. (Starr, 2005) Here, again, the development of these important technologies is sharply contrasted with the same developments in Europe. European governments are described as having been strongly opposed to decentralized communication networks and, in the case of France during the 1850s with telegraphy, as having been stubbornly monopolistic, while American development is again praised for the openness and all-around willingness of its political and business leaders to embrace the ideological allowance of decentralized innovation. (Starr, 2005, p. 159)

Part III discusses the establishment of what Starr (2005, p. 231) labels as “modern media.” This last section of the book focuses on such technologies as magazines, radio, and film. (Starr, 2005). Starr (2005, p. 236) begins with an interesting discussion on moral censorship:

The years after the Civil War saw antiobscenity efforts turn into a public crusade and gain the authority of federal as well as stricter state law. For the first time, Americans created private organizations specifically aimed at suppressing obscene publications and other obscene items, undertook extensive prosecutions of people in the trade and sent them to prison in significant numbers. In a key turn, Congress broke with earlier policy and authorized use of the Post Office as an instrument of censorship and moral regulation.

Yet, despite the lengths to which the American public went to prosecute obscenity and to attempt to legally ensure its permanent destruction, it appears from what follows this introduction that from 1870 to the beginning of World War I, Americans showed a competing and eventually dominating interest in “a greater diversity of expression.” (Starr, 2005, p. 251) This no doubt reflected the rise in immigration during this period and the broadening cultural need for a more diverse and less divisive society that was attempting to, above all, cohabitate.

This need eventually manifested itself in the cause of the free-speech movement, which focused in the beginning on civil rights for women, workers, and, if I may be permitted a humorous reprieve, Catholics chafed by copulation without contraception. (Starr, 2005, p. 269) Ignited by general decency advocates, this movement was subsequently inflamed by artists and intellectuals, with particular opposition stemming from literary voices. (Starr, 2005, p. 272) By the early 1930s, U.S. courts had solidified America’s legal grounding for civil liberties. (Starr, 2005, p. 293)

With the emergence of film, however, censorship reared its head again in the form of a landmark court case, Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, which effectively gave calls for censorship in film unlimited reign. (Starr, 2005, pp. 311, 312) As Starr (2005, p. 314) reports, this also effectively “denied movies the constitutional status of the press.” Then, with the emergence of radio, media creators and distributors were given hope by the 1912 Radio Act that government could not legally deny radio licenses. (Starr, 2005, p. 331)

Unfortunately, Starr (2005, pp. 342, 343) reports that, shortly thereafter, the 1927 Radio Act authorized a government body known as the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) to “divide up the [radio] spectrum among different classes of stations and to select which applicants would receive licenses to run stations at specific wavelengths, power levels, geographic locations, and hours.” Then, in an more unfortunate turn of events for radio, this authorization was upheld in slightly altered verbiage by the Communications Act of 1934, which allowed the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to regulate “radio as well as interstate and international telegraph, cable, and telephone services.” (Starr, 2005, p. 360)

Commentary

Starr (2005, p. 402) ends his book on a somewhat dismal note, stating, “Many people hoping to move the modern world have thought that the media offered them a lever long enough and a place to stand—the place being in front of a microphone, camera, or computer screen. Mostly this is a delusion, as so many people are moving in different directions.” Not to sound too bleak, he adds as his last sentence, “But the media certainly are mighty levers, and where our world moves in the future will depend on critical choices about them we have yet to make.” (Starr, 2005, p. 402)

I find myself wondering if Starr’s last sentence is largely conciliatory. I wonder, namely, if the seemingly incredible power I perceive in the ability of potentially everyone alive to express their thoughts and opinions on the Internet is not in actuality an illusion. Yet, by the same token, I find Starr’s stated reason for said powerlessness, that so many people move in so many disparate directions, to be somewhat counterintuitive. If actions speak louder than words and Internet user statistics are any indication of people’s actions online, then the world appears to be a much smaller place than we think in terms of its inhabitants’ needs and desires. User patterns on the Internet teach me that people use the Internet in the same basic ways that they use other mass media, suggesting that they have by-and-large the same or highly similar reasons for doing so.

Like a vast majority of people whose use of the Internet forms an integral part of their lives and, in my case, livelihood, I have a deep hope that the voice of the people, as it were, is being heard online. In fact, I have reason to believe this is the case. That reason is Net Neutrality.

This year saw a lot of press over Net Neutrality disputes. Net Neutrality is a principle whereby no Internet provider should be legally allowed to financially discriminate for access online. For example, with this principle in place, AT&T is legally prohibited from reducing the speed of your Internet connection to, say, Verizon.com. This is not the greatest example, since AT&T and Verizon are both large telecoms that oppose Net Neutrality, but it expresses the principle. Essentially, this principle claims to prevent large telecommunication companies, like AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth, from charging not only for the amount of bandwidth a user receives, but also for where he or he receives it.

It now appears that members newly elected members of Congress will support Net Neutrality. (Jones, 2006) Having read The Creation of the Media, I find that the history of dueling philosophies about information and communications technologies in the U.S. and Europe lend credence to the position that Net Neutrality is a principle that, provided it is what it claims, favors a free market. The history of communication networks in the U.S. and Europe from its Colonial period to today suggests that monopolizing communications networks prohibits their development. This seems especially true when governments monopolize those networks, as with France and the telegraph in the 1850s. England and France are two European countries that seemingly share a long history of demonstrating what not to do with regard to almost any major communications technology, beginning with the printing press. The U.S., in contrast, has seemingly shown a remarkable openness and willingness to embrace decentralized information flows. Hence, the capitalistic self-governance that blossoms ever so delicately inside Adam Smith’s invisible hand should remain assured by Net Neutrality’s adoption by Congress into law.

References

Amazon.com, Inc. (2006). Freedom’s Power: The True Force of Liberalism. Paul Starr. Retrieved November 12, 2006, from http://www.amazon.com/Freedoms-Power-True-Force-Liberalism/dp/046508186X.

Jones, K.C. (2006). “New Congress Likely To Support Net Neutrality”. InformationWeek. Retrieved November 17, 2006, from http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=194500121.

Princeton University. (2006). Paul Starr: Biographical Information. Retrieved November 12, 2006, from http://www.princeton.edu/~starr/starrbio.html.

Starr, P. (2005). The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications. New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 2004).